The Bad Years

Maybe it’s just a symptom of getting older.

Maybe I’m turning into a pessimist right before your eyes.

Maybe these past few years have just sucked.

You be the judge.

2017 – In July of that year, I was informed that the company I worked for was closing down the facility where I and around 30 other people worked. I’d been there for seventeen years. Yikes. Nothing like starting over, right? On the bright side of that situation, they told us in July but weren’t closing until the end of December. And those of us who stayed on with the company would receive a ‘stay package’ as well as a severance package.

But wait, 2017 wasn’t done with us yet. In August, on the 21st to be exact, I was given a diagnosis of breast cancer.

Well.

Let’s do this. I was given an appointment with a surgeon for the next Thursday, August 24. At that appointment we scheduled my surgery, which took place on September 5th. It was a Tuesday.

After surgery, we scheduled the start of chemo. Those treatments took us into 2018.

2018 actually wasn’t too horrible. I completed my cancer treatment, finishing chemotherapy and radiation therapy. I took the summer off and started looking for a job in July of that year.

I started my new job in August of 2018.

2019 – The year of injury. Tom hurt himself a couple of times this year. Each injury was bad enough that it took him out of commission for a couple of months each time.

It was awful to see him suffer.

The farmers also suffered during 2019. The rains seemed like they would never end. It was literally too wet for most farmers in our area to get the crops in the ground.

2020 – Damn. Talk about adding insult to injury. Hello Covid-19, way to turn the world upside down.

I don’t have a pretty little conclusion to this one, because right this second we’re stuck right in the middle of this shit storm. But it’s bad…it’s really, REALLY bad. And it will probably get much worse before it gets better.

That’s such a scary thought. But then…it’s a scary world out there right now.

And damn it, I just cannot stop touching my face. My nose itches, my eyelashes are being weird. Oh, that spot above my eyebrows is itchy now. Wait, there’s a hair in my eyes.